This release provides environmental, economic and social information for the 5 Natural Resource Management (NRM) regions that comprise the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) catchments. The data are presented by way of an experimental Land Account. As mentioned in the preface this experimental Land Account is the forerunner to a planned series of land accounts and is an integral part of a full set of integrated environmental-economic accounts currently being developed by the ABS. It aims to provide statistics to inform decision-making, research and discussion about the GBR region and land accounts within government and in the wider community.

The data are presented in a series of statistical tables as well as in a spatial format. There are three components to this release.

The first component comprises a series of statistical tables that show, for each of the 5 NRMs and for the GBR region, land ownership classified by sector. Land ownership is also cross classified by the land use category (assigned to the land by the Queensland Valuer General), land use and land cover.

The second component combines Google Earth® images with data for each of the 3,005SA1 areas in the 5 NRM regions by clicking on a selected SA1. (For an explanation of the SA1 geography refer to the Explanatory Notes.)

The third component of the release is the socio-economic spatial layer which is available as an ESRI shape file. This will enable users to overlay the socio-economic layer with other bio-physical layers (eg soil condition, elevation and slope) to undertake further analysis.

Data in this release cover different time periods and this should be considered in interpreting the outputs.